


A Knack for Falling

by avesnongrata



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, reckless pilot shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 07:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20170696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avesnongrata/pseuds/avesnongrata
Summary: Carol's stomach drops as the plane takes a sharp dip in velocity, though for another few heartbeats she's still gaining altitude. The familiar rush of near-weightlessness goes straight to her head as she reaches the vertex of her climb.





	A Knack for Falling

There's nothing quite like the clack of a cue ball knocking a few balls across the surface of a pool table, followed by the _thunk_ of one of said balls sinking neatly into the corner pocket. That is, there's nothing like it when Carol is the one doing the sinking. When it's a striped ball, however...

"Oh, fuck you!" Carol laughs despite the growl of her competitive side, ever-present and restless in her chest.

Across the table, Maria flashes her the kind of grin that drowns out the dull roar of the dive bar around them. "What's the matter, Danvers? Can't you take a little ass-whooping?"

Carol grips her cue a little tighter and brandishes it at Maria. "I'm coming for you, Rambeau. Just you wait." For good measure, she jabs the tip against Maria's arm, leaving a blue chalk streak on her skin.

"Yeah, yeah, alright." Maria swats Carol's cue away and takes up her own again. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Oh, I'm coming for you."

But Maria isn't listening anymore. She's spotted her next shot and is already laser-focused on it. Maria bends low to the table, finesses her cue into position, slides the tip deftly through her fingers. Carol catches her bottom lip between her teeth, willing her to miss.

Maria sinks another one. Then another.

"Eight ball, side pocket," Maria calls her shot over her shoulder, her eyes never leaving the table.

Carol scoffs. "Cocky. There's no way you can make that sh—"

_Clack. Thunk._

Maria whoops, drawing the startled attention of the people at the nearby tables, but she doesn't care. She turns to face Carol, arms stretched wide. "What was that about coming for me?"

"Yeah, yeah, you got lucky," Carol grumbles. She makes a show of crossing her arms and sulking, but the triumph glowing on Maria's face tugs the corner of her mouth into a smile despite herself.

"Pay up, babe." Maria props a hip on the edge of the pool table and reaches for her beer.

There's a moment - just a brief flicker of a moment - when the floor beneath Carol's feet vanishes out from under her. The light above the pool table glows just a little brighter. Maria's left hand flexes around her cue as her right lifts her bottle to her lips. Her eyes meet Carol's.

_Oh._

Carol draws a breath.

_Oh no._

* * *

"Danvers? Everything okay?" Lawson's voice crackles over the comms.

"Five by five, why?"

"You're a little high for our target parameters."

"No offense, sir, but your target parameters are a little low for me."

"Don't be an ass, kid. This test run is to check for issues at 30,000 feet. Save the next ten thousand for later."

Carol double-checks her readouts and fights the urge to roll her eyes. "She's flying fine at 30,000. No sign of engine strain, lines look good. Figured while I'm up here I'd save us the trouble of filing another flight plan later."

"Tell that to the laws of physics."

A part of her knows it's a dumb idea to go against her superior officer, not to mention recklessly push the limits of an experimental aircraft. The rest of her is high on adrenaline and g-force and the miles of sky between her and the earth. She grips the controls and heads even higher.

_Higher further faster, baby._

"No seriously, Danvers, she's untested at that altitude." There's a note of endearment that takes the edge off Lawson's admonishment. "Don't wreck another one of my birds."

"Two birds, one stones-for-brains pilot."

"Rambeau, get off the comms. Danvers, get back down to target altitude or I'm sending both of you to your r—"

The rest of Lawson's words are lost in a sudden _pop_ and the sputter of an engine stalling out.

_Fuck_. _Shitshitshit_.

Her stomach drops as the plane takes a sharp dip in velocity, though for another few heartbeats she's still gaining altitude. The familiar rush of near-weightlessness goes straight to her head as she reaches the vertex of her climb - though, if she's honest, it has more of an effect of the beat of her pulse between her legs. It's the exhilaration that comes with the sudden awareness of her body, fragile flesh and bone defying physics to hang suspended in the very sky. Her breath catches for three, two, one… and then gravity catches up to her. It always does, in the end. It tugs at her, pulling her in excruciating slow motion back towards earth.

* * *

The room around them fades back into focus, the hum of voices and the clink of glassware behind the bar once again audible over the rush of blood in Carol's ears.

"Girl, don't make me grab your wallet out of your pocket again. I kicked your ass, now give me my 20 bucks!" Maria makes a lunge for Carol's back pocket.

Though her limbs feel slow and heavy in the wake of her moment of weightlessness, Carol manages to sidestep out of Maria's reach. "Alright, alright, gimme a sec!" She thumbs through her wallet and tosses a few bills onto the table in front of Maria.

Maria stuffs them into her own back pocket with a grin. "Want to go another round? You can break this time."

Carol shakes her head, as much to decline Maria's offer as to get a grip on the thoughts swirling through her mind. When that doesn't help, she grabs her jacket off the hook on the wall. "Maybe in a bit? I'm gonna get some air."

The door, when it shuts behind her, seals off all the noise from the bar, leaving her alone in the cool night air. She steps out of the glare of the streetlight and into the shadow of the alley. Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she finds a spot on the side of the building to lean her shoulders against. She draws a breath, then another, and stares up at the cloudless sky. 

_Fuck._

* * *

She just has to keep the nose pointed upward. She's stalled enough of these things to have no trouble pulling it into a controlled glide, but she's up high enough that even a controlled glide would have her eat shit hard at zero altitude. Luckily, she's also high enough that there's plenty of time to get out of this jam well before shit-eating altitudes.

The voice coming over the comms finally catches her attention. "Danvers, what's happening—"

"Gimme a sec." She banks, wrestling the plane back around into the general direction of the landing strip. She's regained control for now, but she's losing altitude fast.

Carol closes her eyes, draws a breath, lets it slowly out again.

With enough practice, there's a peacefulness to falling. Everything else fades away in the face of the inevitable grip of gravity. You learn to let go, lean into the calm, collect your thoughts. It's the drawback before a punch: adjust your weight, coordinate your movements, draw all your power and anger and fear taut like a bowstring. Hold it there, wait for the right moment to release.

Yes, she's falling out of the sky, but she's always had a knack for falling. Even before she'd made it into her first cockpit, even before she knew the tug of a flight harness and the thrashing of the controls in her hands, she had a knack for keeping herself in the air by sheer force of will alone. She grips the fall hard and wrestles it into submission. The plane responds like a dream. Lawson's designs have inched closer and closer to feeling as intuitive as her own body over the last 6 months. At this rate, Carol might even know the true taste of flight without even this scant bit of machinery around her.

On the other hand, if she can't get this engine restarted, she'll have to bail out. Lawson will keep her grounded for a month, and falling with a parachute is never as much fun. She keys the ignition, adjusts the air intake, flips switches in every sequence she can think of. The engine coughs, sputters, then settles into a hum. The plane picks up speed, thrumming back to life around her. She levels off, then banks, once again reveling in the speed and control of a fully-functional aircraft.

She's not reckless enough to push her luck a second time though. Reluctantly, she begins her approach for landing. For the next few minutes, everything goes exactly as planned. The plane touches down, meeting the earth with a thud that jars her spine and sets her teeth on edge. The sensation of having solid ground beneath her feels foreign, but her muscle memory keeps her moving while she readjusts.

_Harness. Hatch. Helmet._

By the time she makes it down out of the cockpit, Lawson and Rambeau are there to meet her.

"You're right: she's a little squirrely above 30,000 feet," Carol quips before Lawson can do so much as raise an exasperated eyebrow.

"I'd say 'I told you so', but what good would that do? Go return your flight gear. We'll debrief at 1600." Lawson doesn't wait for a response before pulling some instrument or another off her tool belt and ducking under the plane.

Maria claps an arm around Carol's shoulders and leads her back toward the hangar.

"You okay there, Icarus?"

Carol rolls her eyes. "You weren't worried about me, were you, Rambeau?"

"Please," Maria scoffs, jostling her with her hip as they walk. "More like worried you'd crash that beautiful plane before I got a chance to fly it. What were you thinking, taking her up that high the first time out?"

"As if you wouldn't have been right behind me if you were up there too!"

"Oh, of course," Maria concedes, her laugh echoing through the hangar. "I'd have been _right_ behind you, one hundred percent."

* * *

A burst of noise floods out of the bar, then abruptly stops as the door closes again. A moment later, Maria's face appears from around the corner of the building. "I knew you were a sore loser, Danvers, but I didn't think you would—" She pauses a few steps away from Carol, concern creeping into her voice. "Hey, are you okay?"

Carol tears her gaze away from the stars and meets Maria's eyes. "I'm fine. I just... I had a crazy thought. It's nothing."

"'A crazy thought', huh?" Maria narrows her eyes. "What sort of nonsense am I about to get you out of this time?"

Carol's mouth falls open in indignation. "Oh, come on! I don't immediately follow through with every impulse I ever have."

The lopsided smile returns to Maria's face. "You say that like I wouldn't be right behind you in whatever crazy nonsense you come up with."

"Oh yeah?" Carol can't help but challenge her.

Maria doesn't miss a beat. "One hundred percent."

Carol opens her mouth to argue, but Maria steps closer, toe-to-toe with her.

"Try me."

Despite the pavement under her feet and the bricks at her back, Carol could swear there is suddenly nothing but miles of sky between the two of them and the earth. The clarity of weightlessness hits her a moment later.

"Alright."

Carol grabs Maria by the collar of her jacket and kisses her with all the rush and exhilaration of a free-fall.

There will be consequences, of course, when gravity inevitably catches up with her, but Carol can't bring herself to care.

She's always had a knack for falling.


End file.
